Since we're well into December, I thought it was time to kick of the annual Wetpixel tradition Your Favourite Image Of 2013

Each year we ask you to share your one favourite underwater image taken this year. And part of the tradition is that everyone cheats and posts more than one! For inspiration here are the threads from previous years:

I've spoken to Adam and we're hoping to make the thread more cross-media this year. And we hope to run with parallel postings on the Wetpixel Facebook group. So please post here and also share your image there.

We also plan to pull out some of our favourites and make a special Full Frame feature of them on the front page. Adam will edit this - and will be in touch with photographers individual to created a rounded collection.

So, what is my contribution. Well it has been a heavy diving year for me. I have done 325 dives in the last 12 months from Norway to Raja Ampat. But I am going to choose a simple shot from the Red Sea, as I believe it was an original idea for underwater photography (inspired by land wildlife photography), shooting a fish portrait (of a male anthias) in front of large bokeh disks from an underwater sunset.

To get such large circles I had to use an open aperture and shooting into the sun with an open aperture I had to use fast flash synch of 1/1000th sec, achieved by using a housed land flash. I think this is the first time I have chosen a macro photo as my fave!

This was a tough image to shoot, because the Autofocus does struggle shooting a fast moving fish into the sun. And the patterns in the water are changing really fast. So there was a degree of spray and pray with this one. Here is a video to show how quickly the light patterns change. And then you have to persuade a fish to swim in front of it!

2013 got off to a bang for me photographically and after January I was pretty sure I knew what my entry this year would be. If you dive long enough eventually a whale will swim right in front of you when you least expect it. Fortunately I still had the camera out and was able to get a shot.

Of course it wouldn't be this thread if I didn't feel tempted to cheat a bit and post a second image. The other big event for me this year was finally getting to dive at Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary. It's deep, offshore and a total pain in the neck logistically. But it's also insanely beautiful. It's an amazing thing when something you've dreamed about actually ends up meeting your expectations. (Kudos to Matt V and Jim C for making this happen).

I look forward to this thread every year. One reason why I chose this photo showing Chinook Salmon (as of 2013 common names of North American fishes are to be capitalized- https://afs.confex.c...Paper12336.html) was because it is the one North American Pacific salmon species not found spawning in my backyard (within 10km of my abode) so I have relatively few of them in my portfolio. I took it while on a drive around the state looking for them in cataloged streams. It was partly cloudy on the day I took this shot (available light only) - I got in just a few shots with the sparkle of direct sunlight and this one is my favorite. I returned to this location a week later and the water was quite murky.

Chinook Salmon is also a species of concern in many Alaskan systems. These are in a tributary of the Deshka River (a couple hour drive north of Anchorage), which got an escapement of 18.5K this year. This was up a bit from recent years but much less than years ago.

This was a year where for the first time i dived in cold water(I guess this is relative, but cold for me) temp. was around 11deg Centigrade. It was quite an experience. The raggie came straight at me at a leisurely pace without changing direction. Lying on my back with just a few inches between us was a bit scary. WISH ALL ON WP a merry X Mas.

We have done 10 trips into this mostly "dry" passage cave this year, and I discovered the way out of a sump and 130m of passage in the sump beyond. I also dragged my Aquatica housed 5DII 2kms to the end and 2kms back back again on 7 of the 10 trips. This shot is my favourite - these early sumps are just 15m long and you only get one chance before it all silts out!

And this shot is from caves in Indonesia, one of the best dives I've done. Nearly 1km in I certainly wasn't expected stalactites. These decorations were awesome and topped off a brilliant dive. 2013 has been a great year of cave diving...here's to 2014!

2013 has been a great Indonesian year for my part. Lots of rhinopias as well as my first dives discovering Raja Ampat and Alor.

Then I'll cheat like everyone and select three photos, one for each of these personal highlights.

Weedy rhinopias in Padang Bai. I specially organised one dive only to track this guy, I already had my image in mind, but as you know Murphy, it wasn't there on the specific spot where we expected to meet him, after 15 minutes we decided to cut the dive short and move to another place, very surprisingly, not only we found him but also a second rhinopias fellow. John Hannibal Smith would have said "I love it when a plan comes together" :

Here is one my favorites from reasonably local dive site of Byron Bay. It is of the summer time visitors a Leopard Shark (or Zebra). And following everyone else a second from a trip through Indonesia with the whale sharks of Cenderawashi bay. And third from the Philippines in Barracuda lake at Coron.